All Covered Small Business Survey Shows
Benefits and Challenges of Mobile Solutions

Many believe that today's products are too complicated to use

(Redwood City, CA) December 20th, 2006: All Covered—the only nationwide information technology (IT) services company focused solely on the unique needs of small businesses — today announced the results of its survey of 175 small businesses around their use of mobile technologies.

Small businesses today are implementing mobile and remote capabilities at an accelerated rate. The value of a mobile solution includes faster communications, remote access to corporate data, increased productivity, higher customer satisfaction, and other competitive advantages. In many cases however, security concerns and the lack of knowledge to implement and manage the solutions can prohibit adoption.

To better understand the scope of these issues, All Covered, the leading technology partner for small businesses, interviewed 175 companies about the state of their mobile and remote initiatives during September 2006.  One-third of respondents stated they did not have the knowledge to properly implement and manage mobile technology and half believed the solutions were too complicated.  85% had implemented some level of remote or mobile technology in their business.  Almost one third of companies are utilizing instant messaging, about a quarter of them are using web-based conferencing, lastly 23% use Cellular SMS (“Texting”) in their business communications.

The survey results reported the top benefits of remote and mobile solutions as:

#1 Improved employee productivity

#2 Increased competitive advantage

#3 Enhanced employee work-life balance

#4 Reduced costs on office space and facilities

The top planned investments over the next 12 months are as follows:

#1 Establishing remote access to the corporate network

#2 Tooling the workforce with SmartPhones or PDAs

#3 A tie between a) notebook adoption over desktops and b) Voice-over-IP implementation

All Covered recommends retaining expert resources to surmount the technical challenges as you work through a planned approach for implementing mobile and remote capabilities:

1—Evaluate the need and business benefit by role and function within the organization to determine benefits. A mix of remote and mobile solutions to deliver those benefits will likely emerge.

2—Thoroughly examine the competing solutions and vendor alternatives.

3—Ensure the selected technologies are easy to administer and can be supported by your staff and/or outsourced vendor.

4—Incorporate the highest security protocols at all levels, since enabling remote access is specifically centered on extending your internal data network outside the corporate infrastructure.

5—Use a phased testing, implementation and deployment methodology.

About All Covered

All Covered is the only nationwide information technology (IT) services company that focuses on the unique computing, networking and application needs of small businesses.  All Covered's geographic reach, extensive knowledgebase, automated systems, proven methodology, and preferred vendor relationships helps small businesses be successful.

©2006 All Covered, Inc. All rights reserved. All Covered is a registered trademark of All Covered, Inc.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.